Edith Alice Baum was born in Croft, Leicestershire, England, on the 9th April 1886, the daughter of Samuel and Selina Baum (née Hill). Her father was a riveter in a shipyard, and Edith was one of fourteen children in the family. When she was a child, her family moved to Sunderland, County Durham, where they lived for many years at Dove Street.
Edith was a dressmaker, and in the early summer of 1910, she married Thomas Henry Robinson, who was a carpenter. Shortly after their wedding, her husband immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, leaving Edith behind until he found work and established himself.
In November 1911, her husband returned to Sunderland, and having fixed up their affairs in Sunderland, Edith and her husband left for Vancouver in March 1912.
In the spring of 1915, perhaps because of the war, they decided to return to England, and as a result, booked as second cabin passengers on the Lusitania, which was due to leave New York on 1st May 1915. They left Vancouver at the end of April and joined the vessel before she left the Cunard berth at New York just after mid-day, on that date, for what proved to be the liner’s final voyage. They occupied cabin D.101 during the voyage.
Six days later, after the ship was torpedoed, although Thomas Robinson was killed, she survived. Having been rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, she eventually made it back to Sunderland, where, at her parents’ address of 28, St. Luke's Terrace, Pallion, Sunderland, on 10th May 1915, she gave an interview to a reporter of The Yorkshire Post which was published the following day. It stated: -
Mrs. Robinson said that her husband was also a passenger, and she has the gravest doubts for his safety. When the liner was torpedoed, her husband, after being pitched downstairs, secured two lifejackets. On deck they assisted each other to put the jackets on and he jumped into the sea, saying “Follow me.”
She did not do so, but watched him re-appear and then disappear. She
thought he had struck something in the water. She was washed into the sea by several big waves, but the life jacket kept her afloat and getting hold of a log she kept her head afloat until a man pulled her on to an upturned boat. to which she clung for three hours before being rescued by a trawler. There were nearly fifty people clinging to the boat.
Some time later, in the early summer of the same year, Edith Robinson applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund for help in respect of a Banker’s Draft which her husband had on his person for the sum of £51-0s-0d. She hoped to recover this sum in the future but needed help with her finances until then.
The Relief Fund had been set up after the sinking by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local businessmen to provide financial relief to those survivors and relatives of the dead who had suffered as a result. In Mrs. Robinson’s case, the award committee deferred making a decision and it is likely that she was eventually paid out by the bank upon which the draft had been drawn.
In 1919, Edith married Frank Hall in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, and the couple had one child, a daughter named Edith, who was born in 1922. She lived the remainder of her life I Barrow upon Soar, where her husband was in the footwear trade.
Edith Hall died in Leicestershire on the 29th September 1981, aged 95 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1939 Register, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Liverpool Record Office, IWM GB62, Newcastle Daily Chronicle, Yorkshire Post, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/11, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.